


A Little Help From My Friends

by aligningplanets



Series: Grapefruit Sky [2]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, GASP, Gen, Poor Doctor, Pre-Relationship, a single fuck is said, he has no idea what he's doing, it's more of a Harvey-Maru-Emily friendship fic, makeover montage, the farmer is not actually in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24891061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aligningplanets/pseuds/aligningplanets
Summary: A sequel, of sorts, to 'Closed On Wednesdays'.Harvey has a date and has tried to Make An Effort for it. It hasn't gone well.Thankfully, Emily and Maru are around to save the day with a good-old makeover montage.
Relationships: Harvey (Stardew Valley)/Original Female Character(s), Harvey/Female Player (Stardew Valley)
Series: Grapefruit Sky [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801123
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	A Little Help From My Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: I'm English so I'm afraid this is riddled with British spellings and British-isms. I am so sorry but I can't really do anything about it.

Maru was struggling to maintain eye contact.

Her eyes kept creeping up towards Harvey's hair before being forced back down. He sighed.

"Just say it."

Her eyes snapped away from his hair again.

"Say what?" she said, her voice a very carefully cultivated picture of innocence.

"It hasn't worked, has it?"

"Nonsense. I think it'll be a very effective crash helmet."

"And as an attractive hair style?"

"Yoba, is _that_ what you were going for?"

"Spare me, Maru."

"Doc, you look like you've lost a fight with a hair gel factory," she grimaced.

He sighed again and moved to look in the mirror that was hung behind the clinic's counter. She was right; it did look a little silly.

He'd tried, not for the first time in his life, to exert some control over his hair. It was naturally curly. The most he had ever been able to do was push it towards 'unruly waves' by dragging a comb through it in the shower.

This morning, he'd spent half an hour with some heavy-duty hair gel and a narrow-toothed comb, and had managed to force it into a rather severe side parting. The gel had changed his normal chestnut into a shade that approximated Marmite and it was starting to lose the battle; a visible wave was beginning to crest along his hairline.

He ran his hands through it, trying to shake some of the product out.

"Yoba, don't do that!" Maru grabbed his arms. "Great. Now, you look like Sam."

"Actually, Sam's hair is like Gobu. You know, from Phoenixball Y?" Emily said, not looking up from her magazine, in the waiting area. "Harvey's looks more like a flamberge-bladed sword."

He looked in the mirror again. His hair was sticking out at obtuse angles from his head and starting to corkscrew.

"Why are you always here? Don't you have a job to go to?" he asked Emily, frowning at his reflection.

"Gus doesn't need me in until 5o'clock."

"Could you be elsewhere?"

"Probably."

"Sorry but we're ignoring the real issue here," Maru interjected. "Doc, why have you done this?"

Harvey felt a wave of heat start to creep up his neck. He shrugged, feigning nonchalance.

"Oh. Just trying something different. I thought I'd...try to look a bit more...professional..." The heat started to spread over his cheeks.

Maru raised an eyebrow.

Harvey pointedly studied his nails.

Maru's eyebrow was close to disappearing into her hair.

Harvey cleared his throat airily.

Maru leaned forward, forcing him into icy eye contact. There was a beat of silence.

"He's got a date," Emily stated.

"You WHAT?!" Maru all but screamed.

Harvey blanched.

"I'm sorry," Emily whined. "I couldn't stand the tension."

"Get out of my clinic."

"You were going to snap soon, anyway. She's like the unstoppable force!"

"Get out of my clinic. I am never giving you medical attention again."

"You have a WHAT?!" Maru was gripping the counter for support.

"What if I cut my leg open?!" Emily wailed. "What if I'm bleeding out?! Harvey..."

"You can sew yourself up."

"This is medical malpractice, Harvey! You took an oath!"

"Not a court in the land would convict me."

"DOCTOR HARVEY FINBARR CALLAGHAN!" Both Harvey's and Emily's heads whipped round at Maru's shout.

She took a deep breath and pointed at him.

"You have a date?" Harvey nodded dumbly. "With _whom?_ "

"The farmer," Emily sing-songed.

"Yes, with-- _wait_ ," Harvey turned to her. "How do you know this?"

Emily shrugged.

"Remember when she came in yesterday? When Maru had gone to get lunch? And she'd brought you a cup of coffee? And asked if you still wanted to go round to hers for dinner? And you got all flustered and stammer-y?"

"I do _not_ get flustered and stammer-y!"

"Yeah," Emily nodded. "You were all," she hunched her shoulders over like a particularly tall man who was quite self-conscious about it and rubbed at the hair on the back of her head. "Oh. Uh. Um. Y-yes. Th-that would be great. Just great. I'll, um, um, see you then."

"That's not what I do," Harvey stated as Maru sniggered. "That's not what I sound like. Where were you? Were you hiding behind a pot plant?"

"Nope. You just get tunnel vision when she's around."

"I actually think your hair has absorbed the gel's power, now," Maru said, peering at it.

His curls had become rigid spirals that coiled out from his scalp. Harvey scowled at it in the mirror.

"I'll just wash it out. Don't know why I bothered..."

"So, it's dinner?" Maru asked. He nodded. "What're you planning to wear?"

"Is this...not...OK?"

All three looked at what he was wearing; at his dark suit trousers, white shirt, brown tie and bottle green jacket.

"Ah," he rubbed the front of his right scuffed leather Oxford on the back of his left leg. It didn't help. "Not OK, then."

"It's just a bit..." Maru searched for the words. "I’ve-Come-Straight-From-Work-y."

"I'm not particularly fashionable," he said searching around the counter. "Can you hear that?"

"You don't have to be fashionable. Just look nice."

"Oh, Yoba. Now, I've got that to worry about, too?" He pulled at his earlobe and stared at the ceiling. "Is that a gas leak?"

"Try not to overthink it. A nice shirt and some chinos would do."

"I don't think I own chinos. Can you _really_ not hear that?!"

Maru sighed and pointed at Emily who was emitting a high-pitched whistle, much like an old-fashioned kettle, and was vibrating hard enough to split the atom. Harvey was struck with a sense of impending doom.

"Are you al--"

"MAKEOVER MONTAGE!"

"Oh, no. _No, no_. I don't think--"

"YES!"

"Emily, really--"

“ _YES!_ ”

"Harvey," Emily put her hands on his shoulders; took a steadying breath, and made intense eye contact. "Yes. This is happening."

Harvey looked at Maru imploringly for help.

"Neither us nor Yoba, herself, are strong enough to stop this," she said.

"YES. MAKE. OH. VER. MON. TAGE." Emily punctuated each syllable with an air punch. "Let's go to your apartment; I need to know what I'm working with."

"Just let her. She's got a good eye for these things," Maru told him.

"Whoa. Wait. _Wait_ ," Emily stopped suddenly and stared at Harvey. " _Finbarr?!_ "

* * *

"Harvey," Emily said with the dangerous air of someone just barely keeping their anger under control. "what, in the holy name of Yoba, are you wearing?"

"Is this...is this not good?" He asked, looking down at his shirt. It was pale blue and dotted with tiny multicoloured biplanes.

"Not when it is paired with a Harris tweed jacket, it is not, no," she said in a strained voice. "Do those brown leather brogues have cream suede accents? No, don't tell me." She said, looking away from his feet, pointedly. "I don't want to know.”

"I liked these..." he said, looking at his shoes. "I thought they looked quite natty."

"Doc, no one has used the word 'natty' since 1952," Maru said drily.

"No, this is fine! This is _amazing!_ " Emily smiled brightly. "You don't have a base to work from! You have _no idea!_ We're starting from _absolute zero!_ How exciting! This is _brilliant!_ "

"Thanks! Wait," Harvey frowned. "was that an insult?"

Emily spun him round by the shoulders and started pushing him back up the stairs to his apartment. "Come on, Gromit, we've got work to do! Maru, stay here!"

"You are...very strong," Harvey said and grabbed hold of the banister to keep himself upright as he was jostled up the stairs.

Maru sighed and picked up Emily's discarded magazine.

* * *

“Right,” Emily was rummaging through Harvey’s not-exactly-extensive wardrobe. “You know, this isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.”

“Thank…you…?”

“I mean, it definitely leans towards ‘Grandad Chic’ but that was pretty stylish in, like, 2014. And, hey, you’ve got the whole Pre-War Physician vibe going on so…” she waved a hand at his moustache, as if that explained everything.

“How do all your compliments sound like insults?”

She thrust a selection of clothes into his arms.

“I have mother issues. Put these on.”

She perched on the arm of his sofa and rapped out a beat on her knees with the palms of her hands. He looked at her. She looked back.

“Do you _mind?_ ” he said looking pointedly round his apartment at the lack of separating walls. She heaved a dramatic, longsuffering sigh and dragged herself to her feet.

“ _Fine._ I bet Coco Chanel doesn’t have to work in these conditions. Come down as soon as you’ve got everything on,” she instructed and let herself out of the apartment.

A few minutes later, with the air of a man walking towards the gallows, Harvey descended the stairs. Maru cocked her head to one side.

“Not bad, Emily.”

Harvey tugged at the cuff of his navy jumper before adjusting the white shirt underneath it so it lay more comfortably in the waistband of his dark jeans.

“I didn’t know I even owned these clothes.”

Emily moved to stand in Harvey’s personal space, appraising him with a hand on her chin. He rubbed at the hair on the back of his head and leaned slightly away from her. This was incredibly uncomfortable.

“Aha!” she cried, causing him to start, and grabbed the tweed jacket that had been discarded from his earlier mishap.

He shrugged it on. She buttoned it up, shook her head, then unbuttoned it again.

“You know, I could probably manage that—”

“Stand up straight!” she snapped.

She sounded so much like his Year 6 school teacher that he felt his spine straighten and shoulders kick back involuntarily.

“Better,” she nodded. “you’re really tall, actually, aren’t you?”

“Erm…a-about 6’5”, I think,” he resisted the urge to rub at the back of his head, as Emily adjusted the collar of his shirt. This was _incredibly_ uncomfortable.

Emily buttoned up the front of his jacket again then took a step back. After a moment of terse scrutiny, she grinned.

“I think you’re ready.”

He felt his shoulders relax.

“Now, you just need to not fuck up on the date,” Maru laughed.

His shoulders tensed again.

“Oh, Yoba…”


End file.
